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https://archive.org/details/birthofdivinechi0Olowr 





THE BIRTH OF THE DIVINE 
CHILD 





KAN OF Nb 









“A 


PR Zartg 27 
me AS) 
ogiaa, gw 


THE BIRTH OF THE DIVINE 
CHILD 


A CHRISTMAS SERMON 
DL A aN Re wed OOM A A ay gs 2 


MnP ANG TNT ROD GO ECT LON 
FOR THE: WISE 


BY 1 
WALTER ‘LOWRIE 


Rector of S. Paul’s American Church, Rome 


LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 


SovFIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON, E.C. 4 
TORONTO, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS 


1926 


CopyYRIGHT, 1926, BY 
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. 


MADE IN THE UNITED STATES 


INTRODUCTION 


THE sermon that follows was preached 
last Christmas in S. Paul’s American Church, 
Rome. Some complained that it was too long 
—as indeed it was for that occasion and for 
those who could not be interested in such a 
theme. But others of a different quality (of 
such a quality that I could not ignore their 
counsel) were insistent that the sermon be 
published, and I was persuaded to make an 
exception ‘more unique than rare,’ overcom- 
ing at once both the reluctance of indolence 
and a greater reluctance due to doubt. For 
in more than thirty years of preaching I have 
written only two sermons, and the authority 
of those who now persuade me to write and 
publish this discourse does not quite over- 
come my doubt whether they are justified in 
their opinion that the considerations I here 
urge in favor of myth are likely to have the 
effect of reconciling contrasted views upon 
questions which are now the subject of bitter 


[1] 


INTRODUCTION 


controversy. I here put this opinion to the 
test,—doubtful of the verdict, but convinced 
for my own part that the considerations here 
presented are important as well as true. The 
chief aim of this Introduction is to show that 
they have a wider bearing than the Sermon 
suggests. 

There is nothing very novel in what I have 
to say. I should be the last to assert such 
a claim. For it is a long time since I began 
to apprehend how large a place is made for 
myth in the Christian cult. Thirty years ago 
when I was interesting myself in Christian 
archaeology I observed many instances of a 
singular interest in the sun, and I remarked 
upon some of them in the popular com- 
pendium I wrote some years later. Then, in 
1913, the sesquimillennial commemoration of 
the Edict of Milan, in a lecture on Constan- 
tine the Great which I delivered before many 
of the societies of the Archaeological Insti- 
tute of America (but did not publish) I 
found a convenient occasion for treating this 
curious phenomenon more fully, if not quite 
completely. For Constantine’s interest in 


[2] 


INTRODUCTION 


such matters was so great that one must doubt 
if he clearly distinguished Christianity from 
sun worship. Nothing could have been more 
congenial to him than the celebration of 
Christmas on the 25th of December—the 
commemoration of the birth of Christ on the 
Festival of the Unconquered Sun—and, al- 
though we find the first reference to this cus- 
tom in the reign of his son Constantius, I sus- 
pect that he himself was the originator of it. 

When the northern peoples were con- 
verted to Christianity they still further 
adorned the Christmas festival with the sun 
myths peculiar to their religions. Or rather, 
by practices peculiar to them, since the myth 
itself was universal. Before long the myth 
evaporated, and there remains to us only the 
practices—cult of the tree, the mistletoe, etc. 
It is an instance of the ‘irrational’ in religion 
that this residual cult is still precious, to 
adults as well as to children, even while it 
remains unexplained; but in many talks to 
children at Christmas I have observed how 
ready they are to be interested in the explana- 
tion of the myth. 


[3] 


INTRODUCTION 


On Christmas Day 1913 I talked in this 
way to adults, but in a more stately tone and 
with a reasoned justification of the use of 
myth. The occasion was the unveiling of the 
mosaic picture of the Nativity on the west 
wall of our Church. This discourse was 
printed as an aid to such as sought an inter- 
pretation of our mosaics, and during this cur- 
rent year it has been repeated in a little book 
(Fifty years of S. Paul’s within the walls) 
printed only for lovers of this Church, as a 
commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of 
its consecration. But commonly I have not 
used the festival of the Nativity as an occa- 
sion for speaking about things which are not 
central to our faith but only picturesque addi- 
tions to it, having only a ‘parasitical sub- 
limity,’—according to Ruskin’s quaint defini- 
tion. Commonly I have chosen the season of 
Epiphany for developing such themes as this, 
commenting first of all upon the legendary 
character of the story of the Magi. For if this 
story is not actually legendary, we have al- 
ways treated it as if it were. From age to 
age we have freely adapted it to our purposes. 


[4] 


INTRODUCTION 


The Middle Ages invented the Three Kings, 
representative of the three races of men. 
Many are unaware that S. Matthew does not 
indicate the number, and they would feel that 
the story had lost its glamor if there were 
only two (as in some early pictures) and if 
they represented only one religion and one 
race of men. A modern writer has invented, 
with good reason, ‘The Fourth Wise Man.’ 

Two years ago, when I treated the theme 
of myth with more fulness than usual, my 
Epiphany sermon was more than usually ap- 
preciated, and the encouragement I then re- 
ceived to print it had doubtless some influ- 
ence in determining me to make of it a Christ- 
mas sermon. Eduard Norden’s admirable 
book, “Die Geburt des Kindes,’ was _pub- 
lished just in time (1924) to suggest to me 
an apt text. 

There is an obvious tactical advantage (I 
say it without shame) in beginning such a 
sermon with such a text. But (in spite of 
the precedents mentioned in the following 
sermon, and the many more that might be 
cited) I would hardly have been bold enough 


[5] 


INTRODUCTION 


to use the Fourth Eclogue of Virgil in this 
connection until a philologist of the rank of 
Norden had vindicated its religious character 
and pointed out its relations with ancient 
myth. For it has long been the fashion for 
philologists to assume that this prophecy of 
the poet must have referred to some trivial 
historical character,—without thinking it 
worth while to enquire what might have been 
meant by the Sibyl. This showed bad taste 
and a lack of humor,—such as those com- 
mentators display who seek to interpret in an 
all-too-human sense Isaiah’s prophecy of the 
Child whose name shall be called Immanuel. 
Acknowledging in general terms my debt to 
Norden, I feel free to borrow from his book 
whatever serves my purpose, accepting as cer- 
tain what he has proved, and as plausible 
much that he has suggested. A sermon, like 
a sonnet, affords a too narrow plot of ground 
for arguing positions like these. 

What I have to say about myth will per- 
haps not be accepted as irenical. It will 
doubtless fail to satisfy either of the high 
contending parties,—and it may be that there 


[6] 


INTRODUCTION 


are no others who will be interested. But at 
least it cannot justly be regarded as negative 
or destructive. To me it affords a calm solu- 
tion of a problem which vexes many. And 
yet it is no compromise, though it avoids op- 
posite extremes and may seem to some dan- 
gerous or despicable on that account. Those 
to whom either extreme seems perilous 
should be generous enough to note that, how- 
ever closely these perils are approached, they 
are always avoided. But for my own part, 
I have not sought the safe way but the true. 

It is far from my purpose to exalt myth 
and legend above history, or even to put them 
on the same plane. I would vindicate for 
them, however, a high place—on a par with 
dogma and cult, as equally apt expressions 
of religious faith, even of Christian faith. 

I have no patience with any of the various 
attempts to dissolve Christ or Christianity 
into myth. Christianity is essentially an his- 
torical religion—much more profoundly so. 
than Judaism or any other of the so-called 
‘positive’ religions. For though the proper 
object of religion is the Divine—which is 


[7] 


INTRODUCTION 


super-historical—our religious vision actually 
centers in an historical person, Jesus of 
Nazareth, through whom we know God. St. 
Paul gives expression (half dogmatic and 
half mystical) to the common Christian faith 
when he says, “In him dwelleth all the fulness 
of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). Other 
religions can claim to be historical only in a 
secondary sense, as traceable to a remote 
antiquity and to historic founders,—founders, 
however, who stood to one side and pro- 
claimed that God is God and they are only 
His prophets, that they themselves are not the 
Light but are come to bear witness to the 
Light. “To remind people in an eloquent 
manner of the existence of God,’ is the scorn- 
ful phrase Ruskin uses to describe the func- 
tion of the Christian ministry. I am not 
ashamed to accept that description, for it 
describes justly the part played even by the 
historic founders of religions,—by Moses 
and all the Prophets of Israel, by Zarathus- 
tra, by Mohammed, and, in a certain sense, 
even by Gautama Buddha, who at least had 
no thought of putting himself in the place of 


[8] 


INTRODUCTION 


the divinity which he ignored. Only the 
mythical founders were conceived to do more 
than this. The only exception among his- 
torical founders (so far as they were not 
plainly deceivers or self-deceived) was Jesus 
Christ our Lord and Saviour. Narrow and 
brief was the influence of false prophets after 
the type of Simon Magus, who ‘gave out that 
himself was some great one,’ an emanation 
of God known as ‘the Great Power.’ And 
yet, according to the most authentic records, 
Jesus himself, if he did not clearly claim the 
title of Christ, avoided it only because (like 
‘son of David’) he counted it inadequate; and 
it cannot reasonably be supposed that he 
would have regarded as too high for him the 
mystical epithets ‘Lord’ and ‘Saviour.’ 

I take no offence at the fact that these 
titles were associated with contemporary mys- 
tery cults and ultimately with mythical reli- 
gions. If that is an objection, it bears also 
against the title Christ. For the Messianic 
idea was not original to Judaism but was one 
of the gifts of the Magi. And, essentially, 
apocalyptic eschatology is nothing else but 


[9] 


INTRODUCTION 


myth oriented towards the future. That was 
the distinction of the Zoroastrian myth. But 
even the myths which originally were oriented 
in the opposite sense (as fictitious histories) 
were by the Church valued as prophecies 
which were conceived to be fulfilled in Jesus. 
The eschatological myth can be denounced as 
unreal only in the event that its expectations 
remain unrealized. It may be said that the 
‘historical’ myth is unreal in a more precise 
sense, forasmuch as it corresponds to no 
actual event or historical character in the past 
to which it purports to relate. Yet even so 
it possesses reality in the fact that it cor- 
responds to a real human need and desire. 
And it gains another sort of reality when the 
human need that inspired it finds tardily its 
apt correspondence in an historical character. 
Jesus was the Christ, he was Lord and 
Saviour. Such titles afirm the value which 
men sought and found and acclaimed in Jesus, 
without detracting in the least from His his- 
torical reality or distorting seriously the out- 
lines of His human character. The Canonical 
Gospels guaranteed that. The first genera- 


[10] 


INTRODUCTION 


tion of disciples was so securely anchored in 
the reminiscence of Jesus that they scented 
no danger in the application to Him of 
mythical titles or in the adornment of His 
story with legendary motifs; but when the 
danger became clear this tendency was 
sharply checked, the apochryphal (legen- 
dary) Gospels were discarded, and with the 
support of the historical Gospels Christianity 
survived the two critical centuries which 
threatened to dissolve it into myth. Before 
Constantine’s conversion the danger was past, 
and again myth could safely be treated as an 
ally rather than as an enemy. One may 
think that it has been too much used, or even 
greatly abused, but no sober historian will 
affirm that during the sixteen hundred years 
last past it has jeopardized or obscured the 
historical character of Christianity. 

Many religions—by far the greater num- 
ber—have expressed themselves only in myth 
and cult. On the one hand, myth serves as 
an explanation of the cult, on the other hand, 
as an explanation of the universe. ‘That is 
to say, it serves the same ends as dogma, and 


[ir] 


INTRODUCTION 


it serves them so completely that in a char- 
acteristically mythical religion there is no 
place left for anything else. Christianity is 
essentially dogmatic for the reason that it is 
essentially historical One can dogmatize 
only about facts. So essentially is it dog- 
matic that in Christendom anti-dogmatists 
are compelled to formulate anti-dogmas— 
they propose a different valuation of the 
facts. But alongside of dogma the historical 
religion can admit myth and legend as easily 
as itcan admit prophecy. The only condition 
is that they must bear upon the facts. 

Beside myth and cult and dogma there are 
no other mediums of religious expression. 
For music is clearly an adjunct to the cult, 
and the architectural and pictorial arts have 
no other proper purpose in religion except for 
the adornment of the temple and for the illus- 
tration of the myth. Some will object that 
there are also historical religious pictures, 
and I will not contend about that further than 
to say that if they are merely historical— 
pass no judgment and appraise no values— 
they are clearly felt to be unreligious. Those 


[12] 


INTRODUCTION 


who condemn myth and abjure dogma and 
go about to eliminate the cult are left without 
any means of expressing their religion or 
communicating it. It is difficult to believe 
that they can even hold it securely in their own 
embrace. But as a matter of fact, if ‘truth 
in closest words’ be dogma, the rationalist is 
more prone than others to dogmatize; the 
least ritualistic must recognize the necessity 
of a certain minimum of cult for common 
worship; and we all of us rely more than we 
are commonly willing to admit upon myth 
and legend as expressions of our faith,—upon 
‘truth embodied in a tale’ which enters ‘in at 
lowliest doors.’ 

It is only when we begin to reflect upon it 
that we feel an uneasy conscience at employ- 
ing this last means of expression. Many 
have a very bad conscience indeed when they 
begin to suspect that there are legendary and 
mythological features even in the historical 
Gospels, conceiving that they must either 
accept them as sheer history or reject them 
altogether. ‘This is a very modern dilemma 
because the idea of sheer history is new. In 


[13] 


INTRODUCTION 


our language we have no word to distinguish 
this from the ancient idea of history as a tale 
fitly adorned to awake the impression of truth 
as the narrator subjectively apprehends it. 
The Germans have lately adopted the term 
‘Historie’ to distinguish from mere Ge- 
schichte the modern idea of history as the 
precise and adequate counterpart of past 
events. We hardly feel the need of a special 
word for this because we use ‘history’ as if 
it could mean only this, the apprehension of 
the historical ‘thing in itself.” This view of 
sheer history may be sound so far as it ap- 
plies to sheer facts, but it is a presumptuous 
delusion to suppose that human souls and all 
their experiences are facts of this sort. Our 
experiences are made up chiefly of judgments 
of value. Therein consists their reality as 
experiences. And no history can report them 
adequately which ignores the express char- 
acter of this reality. 

I regard this idea of historicity as a greater 
danger than the effort made in narrow circles 
to explain away Christ as a myth. For 
though the ‘mythical theory’ has at this mo- 


[14] 


INTRODUCTION 


ment a wide and popular echo it is too plainly 
a paradox to be a danger; whereas our 
modern age as a whole, including the two 
extremes of opposition within the Church, 
has completely succumbed to the fallacy of 
sheer history. Our Liberals and our Funda- 
mentalists, being essentially modern, both of 
them, are both tarred with the same stick. 
To use a French phrase which applies so fre- 
quently that it deserves to become prover- 
bial, “The more they differ, the more they 
prove to be la méme chose.’ They share the 
same misunderstanding of history, along with 
the same misunderstanding of myth, and the 
same fear or dislike of it. They differ only 
in the fact that the one party would reject 
all myth in favor of sheer history, while the 
other feels constrained to accept as sheer his- 
tory whatever myth it finds in the Holy Scrip- 
tures. If we are determined to accept noth- 
ing as true in any sense which is not presented 
to us as sheer history or as sheer science, we 
are logically compelled to reject, not only 
myth and cult, but dogma and philosophy and 
poetry and art. With that goes religion,— 


[15] 


INTRODUCTION 


for all these things go together,—and it 
ought to be clear that when religion is re- 
duced to pure history it ceases to be religion. 
The loss of any one of these things might be 
tolerable (even the loss of religion), but one 
cannot lack them all and be a man. We are 
capable, fortunately, of doing what is logic- 
ally impossible, but the state of poetry and 
art in our day proves how broadly potent is 
the tendency of logic. 

From these general considerations I return 
to my main contention, that myth can be 
safely used if it is used rightly, according to 
its own nature and not according to the 
nature of some other thing,—e.g., history. In 
this connection I am not inclined to inquire 
what mythical or legendary elements may be — 
discovered in the historical Gospels or in any 
other part of the Scriptures. Here I am 
thinking rather of the very manifest myths 
which we have freely elected to use for the 
adornment of our religion. No one can 
ignore the fact that the festival of Christmas 
in particular is richly embroidered with myth 
and legend,—legend being defined as the 


[16] 


INTRODUCTION 


naive and popular tale which in‘a later age 
replaced (and in another form preserved) 
the original hieratic myth. Under this thick 
embroidery many fail to discern the material 
on which it is woven. The austere dogma of 
the Incarnation seems to them incompatible 
with the ‘gay religions full of pomp and gold,’ 
of jollity also and frolic, which characterize 
our cult of the Christmas tree. The cult of 
Christmas would not be much affected by the 
demonstration that Jesus was a myth, since 
its substratum is confessedly myth; and 
doubtless there are devotees who celebrate 
Christmas without Christ. I do not grudge 
them in the least the comfort they derive 
from the vague sentiment prompted by the 
observance of the legendary Christmas cere- 
monies, if that is the utmost they can reach. 
But I do not wonder that the austere Puri- 
tans, scenting danger in this, resolved to 
abolish Christmas together with all its pretty 
but trivial observances. I wonder rather that 
in their time they succeeded in this rude viola- 
tion of human nature. For so natural are 
these things, so correspondent to human in- 


[17] 


INTRODUCTION 


stinct, that the descendants of the Puritans 
have everywhere built up again (commonly 
without the Divine Child) what their an- 
cestors tore down,—thus confessing the sin 
of their fathers, who inadvertently had 
‘emptied out the baby with the bath.’ The 
bare dogma of the Incarnation proved not 
so apprehensible—not even so communicable 
—as the myth. 

I have no sympathy for a recent school 
which would substitute ‘value judgments’ for 
history. Many were constrained to that at- 
titude by their fond belief in sheer history. 
But now that this threat of danger has re- 
ceded, the phrase, ‘value judgment,’ remains 
to us as the expression of a very precious 
perception, if we will use it rightly. For 
judgments of value are, in fact, an important 
part of our mental operations. Ethical judg- 
ments, in particular, are commonly perceived 
to be judgments of value. All religious 
affirmations which go beyond the statement 
of plain matter of fact are evidently expres- 
sions of the value we discover in the religious 
object. Such ‘truth’ as we can claim for our 


[18] 


INTRODUCTION 


dogmas (or for our ethical judgments) is a 
different sort of thing from the ‘truth’ which 
pretends merely to define an historical or 
empirical fact. It is truth of a different but 
by no means of an inferior quality, being in- 
tent rather upon reality than upon mere pre- 
cision of representation. It is the sort of 
truth the Hebrew language indicated by the 
word ‘amen’ (reality), which accordingly St. 
John had in mind whenever he used the 
words ‘true’ and ‘truth.’ ‘Honesty is good’ 
expresses a conviction of absolute value, 
whether or no it proves also to be the best 
policy. ‘Jesus is Lord’ (or any other dog- 
matic statement to the same effect) is an ex- 
pression of the value we attach to the his- 
torical Jesus. To all this everyone will agree, 
and I assert it here only in order to point out 
that, in an historical religion like Christianity, 
myth serves the same purpose as dogma,— 
in some respects more perfectly, in others less 
so. It expresses a value judgment—in this 
case the value of the historical Jesus. Very 
different, of course, is the use of myth in a 
mythical religion; for we cannot, properly 


[19] 


INTRODUCTION 


speaking, appraise any value in things which 
do not exist. | 
For my part I heartily prize the Christmas 
myths. I like them all the better for the fact 
that they establish with ancient and remote 
religions a sympathetic bond, though it be 
only a formal one. For all that, I am not a 
partisan of the ‘School of Historical Reli- 
gion’,—least of all am I enamoured of that 
myopic tendency which, with attention riveted 
upon words, fails to perceive that in their new 
connection they acquire a totally different 
character and value. If it could be clearly 
shown that all the ideas of Christianity were 
supplied by mythical religions, that would be 
a grave disparagement of the originality of 
Jesus, but it would not altogether invalidate 
the claim of the Church to be a uniquely his- 
torical religion. For at least all these ideas 
were for the first time centered in one person, 
and for the first time associated with a real 
man. I state here an extreme supposition, 
manifestly contrary to fact, in order to in- 
troduce the reflection that if Christianity had 
been merely a syncretic religion, it would 


[20] 


INTRODUCTION 


have had no chance of survival as against 
competitors which were more frankly and 
wholly and perfectly syncretic. As a matter 
of fact its central ideas were original though 
the words that expressed them were old. 
Though not many years have elapsed since 
the death of my revered teacher Hermann 
Cremer, discoveries have been made in 
language and religion which exact a revision 
of his view of the language of the New Tes- 
tament as the language of the Holy Ghost. 
A revision of it and not its rejection, as it 
seems to me. For it was certainly not his 
meaning that the New Testament language 
was created out of nothing; and if the sources 
of it (in the koine and in the mystical syn- 
cracy) are now more clearly revealed than 
heretofore, the moulding the old words 
underwent is no less clear. J am not scandal- 
ized at discovering that several of the key 
words of the New Testament trace their 
origin to ancient mythological conceptions. 
It might rather be thought a providential dis- 
pensation that, whatever image and super- 
scription they bear, they had become current 


[21] 


INTRODUCTION 


coin throughout the Empire, a_ universal 
religious language. Christianity needed a 
universal tongue, and apart from the words 
of Old Testament coinage there were no 
other terms but these available for the ex- 
pression of the value which the Church dis- 
covered in and through Jesus of Nazareth. 
What all men everywhere had longed for, 
that the Church had to offer,—and it offered 
it appropriately in the very words expressive 
of that universal longing. The use of such 
words was rendered the more obvious and 
inevitable by the fact that they had associa- 
tions with the Old Testament. Of such words 
it might justly be said that they were ‘not 
words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but 
words which the Spirit teacheth,’ and in the 
use of them St. Paul might well feel that he 
was ‘matching spiritual experiences with 
spiritual words’ (1 Cor. 2:13). St. Paul’s 
aversion to the mystery cults makes it certain 
that he was not inclined to adopt their ideas 
or lightly to use the words they had appro- 
priated. In fact, the Church adopted but 
few words from such sources, but they were 


[22] 


INTRODUCTION 


the most significant words. ‘To the use of 
them there was only the one alternative of 
inventing a new and mechanical language de- 
void of all feeling and religious association. 

The foregoing reflections suggest an im- 
mense extension of the simple theme I es- 
sayed to deal with in my sermon. But it all 
hangs together. Every one of the ‘pagan’ 
terms appropriated by Christianity from the 
universal language of mystical syncretism 
(whether akin to Old Testament terms or 
not) is an abbreviation or a vestige of ancient 
myth. Such, for example, are Kyrios, Soter, 
Pneuma—the Lord, the Saviour, the Spirit. 
Not only so, but we can detect the mytholog- 
ical origin of the apocalyptic eschatology 
which was incorporated at a comparatively 
late date in the tradition of Israel and was 
so highly valued by Jesus. The fact that it 
is stamped with His approval creates a new 
problem for us. Or rather it renders the 
old problem of myth more difficult for the 
fact that we cannot lightly get rid of it. But 
we ourselves are responsible for conceiving 
this problem in a harsh form which permits 


[23] 


INTRODUCTION 


of no solution. We ask ourselves if the 
apocalyptic vision is ‘true’—in the sense of 
sheer history, meaning an accurate prevision 
of events which have already occurred or are 
about to occur. But there is a manifest ab- 
surdity in applying strictly an_ historical 
criterion to prophecy. It would seem as if 
only an enemy could exact of prophecy a 
literal and punctual fulfilment, for there could 
be no more effective reductio ad absurdum. 
If the gift of prophecy is to be made plausible 
at all, it must be regarded as a vague appre- 
hension, presentiment, awareness, of things 
which lie not wholly in the future but are 
already obscurely present in reality: 


‘Fallings from us, vanishings, 
Blank misgivings of a creature 
Moving about in worlds not realized. 


Such intimations are most aptly presented 
in symbolical and pictorial forms. This is 
apocalyptic. And we cannot even require 
that its symbols should be adequately expres- 
sive when its object is the unutterable (2 Cor. 


12:4) and the unknowable (Mk. 13:32). 
[24] 


INTRODUCTION 


With this last word (“But of that day or 
that hour knoweth no one, not even the 
angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the 
Father”) Jesus put apocalyptic in its right 
place. From a very different point of view 
Albert Schweitzer remarks upon the paradox 
that Jesus put an end to apocalyptic escha- 
tology. For its fantasies there remained no 
more room when an historical figure filled 
the canvas. What remained was the decisive 
orientation of our religion towards the fu- 
ture. So permanent was this impression that 
we find it difficult now to conceive of a reli- 
gion which does not chiefly express itself as 
Hope. 

I have ventured to express here certain 
perceptions which ‘the ignorant and unstead- 
fast’ might wrest to their own destruction, 
concluding in a negative sense that, as the 
pagan gods are ‘nothing in the world’ and 
their myths are vain imaginations, so also are 
the very terms in which the dogma is ex- 
pressed. 1Ix@ys (the mystic Fish) is the 
summary of our mythical religion, being the 
anagram of Inods Xpicros @eod ‘Vids Ywryp, 


[25] 


INTRODUCTION 


among which titles only the one name Jesus 
is (perhaps) historical, while Christ, Son of 
God, and Saviour are mythical to the core. 
So one must conclude who has no apprehen- 
sion of a unique value in Jesus. But whoso 
finds his own conviction expressed in the 
briefest dogmatic formula Iesus Xristos 
Kurios (Jesus Christ the Lord), and counts 
that inadequate; who finds the Nicene dogma 
of the Incarnation more apt yet still inade- 
quate; he will be inclined to prize in the myths 
and legends of Christmas a real expression 
of value in another genre. 


Having finished this Introduction, I real- 
ize that it might be more profitably read 
after the Sermon. If it has been read first, 
it might well be read a second time. If these 
aphorisms are true, they are worthy of more 
than one reading: if one suspects that they 
are false, he has still more reason for reading 
them again, that he may detect clearly where 
they are in error. 


[26] 


THE BIRTH OF THE DIVINE 
CHILD: A CHRISTMAS SERMON 


FOF GENT OD. Gf 
So much of Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue 


as is pertinent to this use, in a trans- 
lation freely adapted to this occa- 
sion and briefly commented upon. 


« SICILIAN Muses, let us sing a loftier 
strain. If our song must be of sylvan things, 
let them be such as are worthy of a consul. 
‘‘Now, according to the prophecy of the 
Cumean Sibyl, the last age comes to an end. 
After the end follows another beginning, a 
cycle of new centuries. Justice returns, and 
the Saturnian reign; a new race will be sent 
down from heaven. ‘If only thou, pure 
Lucina (helper in child-birth) wilt favor the 
birth of the Child, with whom the iron age 
shall come to an end and a golden race spring 
up throughout the world. Thine own Apollo 


[27] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


reigns’ (i.e., the Sun God, brother of Lucina- 
Diana). 

‘In thy consulship, Pollio, shall this glori- 
ous age commence and the great months of 
the new world era begin to run their course; 
under thy sway will the last traces of our 
guilt be obliterated and the earth freed from 
perpetual terror. That Child shall receive 
the gift of divine life... and by his father’s 
power become a prince of peace to the whole 
earth. 

‘But for thee, dear Child, shall the earth 
untilled pour forth as her first little gifts at 
thy cradle all lovely flowers. The goats un- 
called shall bring their milk, and the herds 
will not fear great lions; serpents shall be no 
more, nor poisonous herbs. As soon as thou 
canst read the praise of heroes and thy fa- 
ther’s deeds and know what valour is, slowly 
the plain will wave with yellow corn, brambles 
will yield purple grapes, and the hard oak dis- 
til honey dew. Some traces, however, of an- 
cient evil will still remain: the peasant must 
labour in the sweat of his brow, the merchant 
must risk his life upon the sea, and cities must 


[28 ] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


be protected still with walls; there shall also 
be other wars, and another great Achilles will 
be sent again to Troy. 

‘When, however, thou art grown from 
youth to man’s estate, able to bear rule, then 
none will any longer have to barter or strive; 
every land shall produce all kinds of fruits, 
the earth shall not feel the furrow, nor the 
vine the pruning knife; the oxen shall be 
loosed from the yoke. Wool need no longer 
counterfeit brilliant hues, but of himself the 
ram in the meadows shall tinge his fleece, 
now to sweetly blushing purple, now to yel- 
low, and scarlet of its own accord shall clothe 
the grazing lambs. 

‘Such ages as these, come quickly,’ cried 
to their spindles the Fates, voicing in unison 
the fixed will of Destiny. Enter on thy 
career—the hour is come,—dear progeny of 
the gods, great offspring of Jupiter. Behold 
how the whole world—heaven, and earth and 
sea—rocks to and fro! how all things exult 
in the coming Aeon. 

‘Begin, baby boy, to recognize thy mother 
with a smile. Begin, baby boy!” 

L29] 


’ 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


You may demand of me an apology for 
beginning a Christmas sermon with a pagan 
text. But we are in Rome, and I quote a 
Latin poet whom Dante regarded as a 
prophet and revered as a guide. In the Pur- 
gatorio (XXII. 64-73) he refers expressly 
to this poem, when he makes the poet Statius 
say to Virgil, 


Thou show’dst me first the way 
To scale Parnasus and to taste its spring, 
And then enlightened me, next after God. 


Behaving like a guide who goes by night, 
Holding a lamp behind which serves him not, 
But renders wise the man who follows on,— 


So thou didst say: ‘The age renews itself, 
Justice returns, and the first state of man, 
And anew progeny descends from heaven, 


Through thee I became poet,—Christian too. 


There are precedents more ancient than 
this and more strictly ecclesiastical. Constan- 
tine had this Eclogue translated into Greek, 
that he might read it to the bishops assembled 
in the first ecumenical council, that of Nicea, 


[30] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


believing that it had a bearing upon the deci- 
sion they were called upon to make as touch- 
ing the doctrine of the Incarnation. Pope 
Innocent III. cited this poem in a Christmas 
sermon preached in the year 1200. Teste 
David cum Sibyla is a well known reference 
to it in a famous medieval hymn—‘David 
being witness along with the Sibyl’ of the 
divinity of the infant Jesus. And you who 
are in Rome have likely seen Rafael’s fres- 
coes in the church of Sta. Maria della Pace, 
where the Cumean Sibyl is identified by the 
Virgilian phrase, Jam nova progenies—'Now 
a new race of men.’ 

But there followed a long period when 
prosaic commentators, 


The mighty scholiasts whose immortal pains 
Made Horace dull and humbled Virgil’s strains, 


persuaded the world that the poet probably 
meant nothing in particular, certainly nothing 
sublime. And I might not have been bold 
enough to treat this as a Christmas text, had 
not a distinguished German philologist pub- 
lished last year a book which vindicates the 


[31] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


religious character of this Eclogue and con- 
nects it with a venerable and all but universal 
myth,—disposing forever of the notion that 
this Divine Child was a son of Pollio, or 
some such thing. Pollio was a supporter of 
Mark Antony and a patron of Virgil. The 
year of his consulate was 40 A.D. ‘The poet's 
prophecy of peace was not then fulfilled. ‘The 
Sibyl’s verses on which it was founded can 
only be vaguely inferred, for the text has not 
been preserved. It is not likely that they 
indicated this particular year. One must sup- 
pose that Virgil made this application, pre- 
senting the poem to his patron on the first 
day of January when he solemnly assumed 
the consulate. He could then say, ‘Already 
Apollo reigns,’ for the 25th of December 
(the winter solstice according to the Ptole- 
maic calendar) was celebrated as the Birth 
Day of the Sun,—here regarded, not as the 
beginning of a common year, but of a new 
cycle of centuries, the first of which, a new 
golden age, was to be under the regiment of 
the Sun. The birth of the Child was soon 


to follow—on the 6th of January, we may 


[32] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


suppose; for that date (which at an early 
time was observed by the Church as the an- 
niversary of the birth of Christ) had first 
been celebrated in Egypt (about 2000 B.c., 
at the founding of Thebes) as the winter 
solstice and the Birthday of the Aeon. 


This brief scholium must sufhce as a com- 
ment upon Virgil’s prophecy. As a text for 
today I prefer to present it in a brief but 
faithful summary: “The time is fulfilled! 
The birth of a divine Child is at hand! He 
is destined to cancel the sin which holds the 
world in bondage, and to introduce a new 
race of men for whom a new age of peace 
and righteousness is about to dawn. Hence 
all the world exults with joy, in heaven and 
in earth.” If I had not told you where this 
prophecy is found, you might well suppose 
that it is a free rendering of the prophecies 
which adorn the first pages of St. Luke’s 
Gospel. “Hail, thou that art highly favored! 
The Lord is with thee! Fear not, Mary, 
for thou hast found favour with God. And 
behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and 


[33] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


bear a Son and shalt call his name Jesus 
(Saviour). We shall be great and shall be 
called the Son of the Most High, and the 
Lord God shall give unto him the throne of 
his father David, and he shall reign over the 
house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom 
there shally be.no end’ (1k. 128-34 eee 
is not a substantial difference that Virgil 
ascribes these good tidings to an inspired 
prophetess, whereas St. Luke puts them in 
the mouth of an angel. Of course in the one 
case there is the coloring of Greek mythology, 
and in the other specific references to the 
tradition of Israel. It is a curious fact, more- 
over, that Virgil uses the singular name for 
god (deus), and that St. Luke’s expression, 
‘the Most High,’ was not a name appro- 
priated to the God of Israel. Bucolic 
imagery belonged to the style of an eclogue, 
but it emerges also in the account of the 
angels appearing to the shepherds that were 
keeping watch over their flocks by night. ‘Be 
not afraid, for behold, I bring you good tid- 
ings of great joy which shall be to all peoples, 
for there is born to you this day in the city 


[34] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


of David a Saviour which is Christ the Lord. 
And this is a sign unto you: Ye shall find a 
Babe wrapped in swadling clothes and lying 
in a manger. And suddenly there was with 
the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, 
praising God and saying, Glory to God in the 
highest, and on earth peace among men in 
whom he is well pleased” (Lk. 2: 10-13). 
In our picture of the Nativity we have added 
something to the pastoral imagery by intro- 
ducing the ox and the ass along with the 
sheep and shepherds at the manger. Such 
embellishments are indeed not foreign to the 
spirit of that story,—nor is the cult of the 
Virgin Mother, which is already adumbrated 
in St. Luke’s sources. In the familiar pic- 
tures of Isis holding in her arms the infant 
Horus (Harpocrates, the divine bambino) 
the early Church had ready to hand a per- 
fect model for its representations of the 
Mother and Child. That too was part of 
the myth which Virgil’s verses refer to,— 
evidently assuming that everyone will under- 
stand who is this ‘babe,’ this ‘little babe,’ so 
casually mentioned yet with such emphasis, 


[35] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


the very center of his prophecy, as it is of 
the Gospel story. 

One might be tempted to suppose that 
Virgil had borrowed all this from the 
Gospels,—if the Gospels had not been writ- 
ten a century later. It involves at least no 
anachronism to suggest that he borrowed 
from Isaiah. ‘“‘Jahve himself shall give you 
a sign. Behold the Virgin shall conceive and 
bear a Son and shall call his name Immanuel 
(God-with-us). Butter and honey shall he 
eat. . . . Before the Child shall know to re- 
fuse the evil and choose the good the land 
whose two kings thou abhorrest shall be for- 
saken” (7:14-16). ‘The people that walked 
in darkness have seen a great light, they that 
dwelt in the valley of the shadow of death, 
upon them hath the light shined. Thou hast 
multiplied the nation, thou hast increased 
their joy; they joy before thee according to 
the joy in harvest, as men rejoice when they 
divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden, 
the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his op- 
pressor, thou hast broken as in the day of 
Midian. . . . For unto us a Child is born, 


[36] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


unto us a Son is given; and the government 
shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall 
be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty 
God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
Of the increase of his government and of 
peace there shall be no end, upon the throne 
of David, and upon his kingdom, to establish 
it, and to uphold it with judgment and with 
righteousness from henceforth and forever”’ 
(9: 2-7). “The wolf shall dwell with the 
lamb, and the leopard with the kid; the calf 
and the young lion and the fatling together; 
and a little child shall lead them. And the 
cow and the bear shall feed; their young shall 
lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw 
like the ox. And the sucking child shall play 
on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child 
shall put his hand on the basilisk’s den. They 
shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain; for the earth shall be full of the 
knowledge of Jahve as the waters cover the 
sea’ (11:6-9). 

In this last passage Isaiah gives a bucolic 
picture of peace much like that of Virgil, ex- 
cept that here the noxious beasts are con- 


[37] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


verted instead of destroyed. This difference 
is enough to dispel the fond fancy that Virgil, 
or the Sibyl before him, has borrowed from 
the Hebrew Prophet. How then can we 
account for the many liknesses but by sup- 
posing a common origin in the remote past? 
And in fact, by gathering up fragments here 
and there which have been scattered along 
the centuries, it is possible to piece together 
the essential elements of an ancient and well 
nigh universal myth of a divine Sun Child. 
And what could the story of the Magi mean 
but that Sun worshippers were seeking the Sun 
Child, guided by an astral sign? Malachi 
prophesied (4:2), “Ihe Sun of Righteous- 
ness shall arise with healing in his wings, and 
ye shall gambol for sheer joy.”’ St. John who 
turns everything into allegory affirms, ‘This 
is the true Light that lighteth every man, 
now coming into the world.” 

You yourselves will recall many a detail 
of the eschatological picture fantastically 
painted in the Gospels, in elaboration of the 
brief announcement, ‘“The kingdom of God 
is at hand.”’ You will remember the still 


[38] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


more elaborate picture given in the Apoc- 
alypse of that kingdom which had not yet 
come but would surely not tarry long. In 
spite of the fact that this class of literature 
appears in Daniel, the latest book of the Old 
Testament, you may have the feeling that all 
this is foreign to the tradition of Israel. That 
suspicion is correct: all this was borrowed 
from the religion of the Magi, which, in- 
verting the usual orientation of the myth, 
sought the golden age in the future rather 
than in the past. In the years of travail 
which preceded the foundation of the Empire 
and the coming of Christ, men everywhere 
were in expectation of a divine Saviour. Per- 
haps it was only man’s need that prompted 
this faith in all its various expressions. But 
is not that almost enough to justify it? Man’s 
extremity is God’s opportunity. One who 
counted himself the Antichrist voiced for our 
generation this same sense of need. He cried, 
“Man is a thing that must be surpassed!” 
Hence he believed in the Superman, the 
Beyond-man. This is closely akin to the nova 
progentes of Virgil, and not very different, it 


[39] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


seems to me, from the ‘new creature,’ the 
‘new man,’ of St. Paul. 

In the narrow space of a sermon it is not 
possible for me to offer you convincing proofs 
of this interpretation of religious history. I 
can do little more than ask you, ‘Has it your 
vote to be so if it can?’ Would you rather 
believe that the yearning after a divine 
Saviour was characteristic of one race alone 
(the race of Jacob, in which you have no 
share by blood), and that the expectation of 
His coming was the exclusive prerogative of 
Israel?—or that all races of men upon the 
face of the whole earth have been seeking 
after God, if haply they might feel after | 
Him and find Him; and that to none of them 
he left himself without a witness, so that 
something in all ancient religions (including 
the dear little bambino Horus) found fulfil- 
ment in the birth of Jesus? I hope you will 
prefer the latter alternative, for you may find 
yourself possessed of a bad conscience if you 
do not. 

“While I can speak freely about the sources 
of the Sibyl’s prophecy, I am aware that some 


[40] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


of you may be offended by the suggestion 
that there might be detected any mythical or 
legendary element in the Gospels. I am 
treading on delicate ground, and I am 
properly fearful of outraging any sincere 
belief. But though there were no myths in 
the Christmas story as told in the Canonical 
Scriptures, you are aware that the mythical 
and legendary element predominated in very 
early gospels which are called ‘apocryphal,’ 
and no one will deny that our customary cele- 
bration of Christmas is richly, riotously, 
mythical. We have invented myths to sup- 
plement what was lacking in the traditional 
account of Santa Claus, Kris Kringle, and the 
Christmas tree. The use of the mistletoe, 
the ‘golden bough,’ is partly explained by 
Virgil, in the only other mystical passage of 
his poems (Aeneid, vi. 137), where again he 
relies upon the Cumean Sibyl. We have 
always dealt with the story of the Magi as 
if it were a myth, freely altering it to suit 
out purposes. We now celebrate this mani- 
festation (epiphany) to the Gentiles on a 
day which four thousand years ago (taking 


[41] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


account of the imperfection of ancient calen- 
dars) marked the winter solstice; and the 
date which we celebrate as Christmas (since 
360 A.D. at the latest) was the solstice of 
the Julian calendar, the Festis Invicti, Birth- 
day of the Unconquered Sun,—upon which, 
as Macrobius relates (Sat. I. 18, 9), ‘““The 
Egyptians carry in procession from a cave- 
like adyton the statue of a boy, because the 
sun is then like a young child.” As though 
this was not enough, at the summer solstice 
we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist, 
who ‘came to bear witness to the Light’; at 
the spring equinox we celebrate the Annun- 
ciation, i.e. the conception of the divine 
Child; and on Sept. 24th (which in old time 
was the autumn equinox) the calendar of 
some Churches commemorated the Baptist’s 
declaration, ‘He (the true Light) must in- 
crease, but I must decrease.’ Thus all the 
decisive moments of the sun’s annual course 
are commemorated in our cult to show that 
Jesus is the cosmic Saviour. 

When the mythical elements in our Christ- 
mas celebration are recognized, the question 


[42] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


presses whether they can be justified. We 
may count that this play is natural enough 
for children, but is it compatible in adult life 
with a serious attitude towards religious 
truths, and towards the doctrine of the In- 
carnation in particular? The Puritans said, 
No; and they boldly proposed to abolish 
Christmas itself along with all its pleasant 
but trivial observances. In the vulgar 
language of Hudibras, 


They quarrel with mince pies and disparage 
Their best and dearest friend, plumb porridge; 
Fat pig and goose itself oppose, 

And blaspheme custard through the nose. 


In the end they succeeded only in suppress- 
ing the proper religious celebration of Christ- 
mas,—and of every other Church festival 
which they considered tainted by myth. What 
they drove with a pitchfork out of the door 
came back through the window,—as every- 
thing does which meets a real human need. 
Perhaps their success might have been com- 
plete, if they had had the courage to de- 
nounce also the myth that is found in the 


[43] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


Gospels. For it is all of a piece. If we 
will tell the truth to ourselves, we are not 
willing to let any of it go. It is all dear 
to us,—Santa Claus and the Christmas tree 
not the least. 
We are determined to practice all this, 
but how are we to think about it? If you 
were asked to tell what a myth is, some of 
you would reply, very inadequately, that it is 
a story which is not true. That definition is 
imperfect, not only because it unjustly dis- 
parages myth by confounding it with the far 
greater number of stories which are both un- 
true and unprofitable, but also because it uses 
a criterion which is not properly applicable 
to myth. It would be absurd to contemn 
myth because it is not history, for it com- 
monly pretends to be nothing of that sort. 
It would be still more absurd to assume that 
myth can have no value as an expression of 
religion, in view of the fact that, in almost 
all religions except our own, myth is a 
favorite means of expression. One might 
rather count it a defect in the Christian relli- 
gion that it is so poor in myth. To ask 


[44] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


whether a myth is ‘true’ is beside the point. 
Lady Burne-Jones reports the reply of her 
husband when one who admired the picture 
of the Annunciation which he made for the 
triumphal arch of this Church required him 
to say if he believed the story true. ‘It must 
be true,’ said the artist, ‘it is so beautiful.’ 
Much to the same effect was Heracleitos’ 
appreciation of myth: ‘quite beautiful.’ In 
fact, myth is a form of art, and it rightly 
seeks to express beauty. That is the sort of 
‘truth’ it aims after. Its close relation to: 
pictorial art might serve to remind us of this. 
In Christianity, as an historical religion, myth 
serves a new and peculiar purpose. It ex- 
presses a value judgment. Such is the mean- 
ing of our composite Christmas myth. It 
expresses the unique value we discover in 
Jesus. Who can deny that it expresses it 
well, and in the only terms which children 
and adults, the simple and the wise, can use 
incommon? And after all, dogma is not so 
essentially different from myth as we com- 
monly assume. It too is the expression of 
a judgment of value, and to the wise, who 


[45] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


understand the symbolical limitations of 
language, it seems always inadequate,—in- 
adequate not only because of the imperfection 
of human speech, but because of the great- 
ness of its object. We must count it inade- 
quate even in its noblest expressions: as this 
of St. John’s, ““The Word became flesh and 
dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, a 
glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father, 
full of grace and truth’; or this of St. Paul’s, 
‘We beheld the glory of God in the face of 
Jesus Christ.” 

We must make clear to ourselves that 
there are just three ways by which men are 
wont to express their religious judgments and 
feelings, and that they are all of them expres- 
sions of the value which (rightly or wrongly) 
they attach to the religious object. These 
three ways are (in the order of their use): 
ritual worship, myth, and dogma,—art being 
used most ineptly for the presentation of 
dogma, but very appropriately for the en- 
hancement of worship and for the illustration 
of myth. ‘Though they are all alike inade- 
quate ways, they are all right ways,—if only 


[46] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


they be used according to their several 
natures. 

But this is not to say that I apprehend no 
danger or inconvenience in the gradual accre- 
tion of myth about the essential Christian 
Gospel. Even so much (or so little) as had 
entered into two of the historical Gospels 
rendered them vulnerable to the keen shafts 
of Celsus’ criticism, who observed in his 
‘True Word’ that the pagan religions were 
full of stories of gods begetting half-human 
sons, and that the wise were by no means 
proud of such things. We may note that the 
Church resisted the temptation of mythical 
adornment during two centuries which threat- 
ened to resolve all its dogma and history 
into myth, as was done by all the Gnostic sects. 
Origen justly retorted to Celsus that there 
was a difference: Jesus was an historical man. 
We are in danger if we lose hold of that. 
But this is not the chief danger of our day. 
We are under no necessity of emphasizing, 
as St. John does, the fact that ‘Jesus Christ 
came in the flesh,’ and the phrases to this 
effect in the Apostles’ Creed seem to us to 


[47] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


insist unduly upon the historical character of 
Jesus. But in our day we have formulated 
a false dilemma: ‘Jesus or Christ,’—by 
which we mean the necessity of a choice be- 
tween history and myth. To a question so 
falsely put there can be no true answer. If 
Jesus accounted himself to be the Christ and 
acted the part, myth (of a sort) is inex- 
tricably mingled with the Gospel history. 
That he did so has been shown in a way 
entirely convincing to me by Albert Schweit- 
zer’s ‘criticism,’ and I wonder why, for this 
positive service, he is commonly regarded as 
a negative critic. | 

We must make it clear to ourselves that 
the marvelous stories which have gathered 
about the birth of Jesus add not one ounce 
of evidence to the conviction that Jesus is a 
fit object of our religious devotion. They 
served in the beginning, and they serve now, 
merely to express that conviction, which we 
arrive at by a very different sort of evidence, 
—whether on traditional grounds, or on 
rational, or on practical (i.e. because we have 
been taught to believe, or find it reasonable, 


[48] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


or find it good). Myth is more nearly like 
an act of worship than like a creed. 

Yet I reflect again that all this is not with- 
out danger. I am thinking now of the danger 
that the Christmas festival may outlive Chris- 
tianity,—as it has outlived it in the case of 
many who frolic merrily today. I do not 
speak as a kill-joy, bewailing that people 

_ should be happy about nothing when they 
\ have nothing else to be happy about. I enter 
heartily into the Christmas play: we had our 
Christmas tree in the Rectory last night, and 
here is our presepio in the Church. Up to. 
a certain point I can enjoy it all. But I have 
the defect of enjoying the theatre very little, 
and consequently am not overfond of the 
histrionic element in our Catholic worship. 
In Holy Week and at Easter our observances 
are influenced by the orgiastic cult of Thamus- 
Adonis. We pretend that Jesus dies every 
year, and every year is raised from the dead. 
And now, ‘as at this season,’ we pretend that 
he is born every year. It is possible even 
for people to pretend that he always has 
remained the Bambino. It gives me no 


[49] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


pleasure when friends write to me at this 
season that they will pray to the divine Infant 
for me. This which the Roman Catholic 
accepts as traditional orthodoxy is for us as 
yet mere play—and it is not good play. You 
may see here a Church dedicated To THE 
INFANT GoD. But no infant, though he be 
divine, is strong enough to save me,—until 
(as Virgil says) ‘he has grown from youth 
to man’s estate and is able to bear rule.’ It 
is well for us to remember that Jesus was 
born something like nineteen hundred and 
twenty-five years ago. But it should be im- 
possible for us not to remember also that he 
grew up, and that in the fulness of his young 
manhood he died upon the Cross. Iam fain 
even upon Christmas Day to look beyond the 
symbol of the Incarnation which Burne-Jones 
has beautifully depicted upon the chancel 
arch and to remember the strong Man he 
has stretched upon the ‘Tree of Forgiveness’ 
in front of the apse. And beyond that again 
(for He did not suffer there forever) I look 
to the universal ruler (Pantocrator, the 
Greeks call him and represent him more 


[50] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


sternly), who is now enthroned above the 
worlds and holds the earth in the hollow of 
his hand. That picture too, in every pictorial 
detail, is of the stuff that myths are made of. 
These golden walls of the heavenly Jeru- 
salem are not ‘real,’ neither is the throne in 
the midst of it, nor the rainbow about the 
throne, nor the fourfold river of life which 
issues from beneath the throne; the seraphs 
round about the throne are like nothing that 
anywhere exists, and a human form no longer 
circumscribes the glorified Christ. Yet in a 
deeper sense that picture is most real and 
true. It expresses to me more cogently and 
more adequately than any dogma the cheer- 
ful faith that Jesus Christ really is enthroned 
above all Principalities and Powers; that He 
shall reign till He hath put all enemies under 
Piss tects: that, in spite..of. ‘the’ traces) of 
ancient evil’ which still remain, He is able to 
save me and all the world; that He now, as 
in the ‘days of his flesh,’ possesses (to use 


Blake’s words) 


the human form divine: 
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace; 


[51] 


BIRTH OF THE DIVINE CHILD 


that he can create a new. race (nova 
progenies) after his own likeness, and a new 
earth fit for such inhabitants. 


I wonder if Pope Pius XI. was prompted 
by some such reflections as these to publish, 
precisely on this Christmas Eve, the ency- 
clical which establishes the new festival of 
Christus Rex. 


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